EWX’s Trevor Niemack unpacks why smart finance leaders should be automating their reporting.
Great finance leaders know that in order to lead with insight and provide much-needed answers, they require a deep understanding of what is going on in their organisations. EnterpriseWorx (EWX) has been on a journey to build the best tools for finance leaders and is now positioned to deliver top-notch business intelligence and data management solutions.
EWX’s goal is to give customers a near real-time approach to financial reporting. EWX strategic business and product manager Trevor Niemack says, “Extracting data from multiple sources, trying to structure the data, and then trying to put together financial reporting is a headache if done manually. We strive to reduce that headache for CFOs, freeing up valuable hours, and giving them the security and peace of mind of knowing that there is accuracy in terms of reporting, without having to recheck their data.”
Greater consistency and accuracy in reporting
EWX offers a comprehensive financial reporting tool that pulls out the customer’s data from transactional systems in real-time, and that information goes into financial reporting models.
EWX creates the ability to create automated income statements, balance sheets, cash flows, and also deep dives into your sub-margins painlessly.
“We try to make key measures easy to understand on a daily and weekly basis. You can track performance using KPIs that allow you to track across all measures, from how salaries and sales impact the bottom line,” explains Trevor.
The advantage of being able to drill down to granular detail in real-time, is that you can see fluctuations or other inflections in your business as they happen, allowing you to be proactive and act before the company is in any real danger and challenges have snowballed.
Insight that avoids nasty surprises
“We try to create visibility through your organisation and deliver a fit-for-purpose enterprise management tool, not just mere numbers,” explains Trevor. “The tool allows you to look closely at how operational processes and decisions impact financial outcomes.”
Companies that have the ability to understand cost of sale fluctuations, operating models, processes over time and profit margins beforehand, avoid the scenario of having rude surprises when reporting happens weeks or months down the road. Being behind the curve not only erodes confidence, but it can also have real, lasting implications on aspects such as an enterprise’s share price.
Ease of adoption
While EWX’s solutions are able to be quickly deployed and integrated, they have a level of sophistication that requires going beyond a quick ‘plug and play’ mentality.
Trevor explains that to get the full utility of the tool there is an element of mapping involved. “We are system agnostic, so we have the functionality to integrate with any ERP. We have a structure that the finance leader and their team can map to unique to their context depending on what the important sets of data for that organisation are. After correctly mapping, the platform can efficiently collect data and pull it into a format that can be used in financial reporting.
“EWX’s systems are intelligent enough to allow finance professionals to focus on single entries within their often complex, large records and provide insight into how a specific indicator affected the entire report. As a user, the ability to map the tool to your particular set of requirements gives it real value because the insights gained are relevant and specific to your business needs.”
ROI of advanced accounting solutions
“Our value comes in terms of saving customers’ time in the process of gathering data, peace of mind of accuracy, taking complex pieces of information and presenting a picture,” says Trevor. He adds that being able to answer crucial questions in your business is a key function of being a finance leader: “Whether you are in a strategy session or board meeting, you need to be able to quickly and efficiently respond, and give specific details when questions arise. With our solutions, the CFO is able to quickly pull up information and look like they know every cog in the wheel of the organisation, which goes a long way in creating confidence.
In the past year, many finance leaders have had to lead the scenario planning function in their organisations. As many companies grapple with a still-shifting business environment, EWX’s tool includes budgeting and forecasting, which allows CFOs to think ahead smartly.
Trevor explains that “You can upload a number of forecasts and be able to display them side by side tounderstand how scenarios may play out. A customer can obtain key measures such as budget, against forecast, against actuals, which allows them to have a high-level understanding of their critical numbers.”
Having successfully deployed the full spectrum of tools at large enterprises, EWX is confident that it can deliver the tools that enable the agility and insight that so many finance leaders are in pursuit of.
